So here is the second in the series of Gears of War Strategy Guides from yours truly and some help and insight from the Microsoft Game Studios Dev Team. This section will cover two very important topics, Team Tactics and Weapon Tactics. Frag On! You can find the first section on Cover Tactics HERE.

Team Tactics

For multiplayer Gears of War is all about the team tactics. There is not much that can be done alone when facing four opponents. It will happen at times but no matter how good you are your best weapon is a coordinated team strategy. Gameplay in Gears breaks down into 3 separate game types. Your strategies will be pretty much the same for each other than some slight alterations based on weapon loadout and your current goal in the match. This will not be the end all and be all of tactics for gears but these are the basic building blocks you will need to survive and come up with your own advanced tactics.

Teams are made up of 3-4 members. The optimal will usually be to have 4 members so that you can split into two person teams. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TRAVEL IN AT LEAST 2 MAN SQUADS OR YOU WILL DIE! The first reason for this is the best and most obvious: When you or a teammate are down and wounded you need to be close enough to revive each other. (You get just as many points for a revive as for a kill.) To revive a downed teammate you walk up to them and hit the 'X' button. The other benefit is that the enemy will usually be moving in groups as well, and if not you now have an advantage over them.

When moving in two person groups you can also flank the enemy easier. Flanking is the act of coming at the enemy from another angle. With two or more people you can easily allow one teammate to fire and distract them while another moves around to the side or behind the enemy. Smoke grenades can be your best friend for this as well. The art of distraction will play a big part in you and your teammates chances of winning. Below are some different tactical maneuvers that can really aid you in winning.

The Bait:

Baiting the enemy into an ambush situation can be a real blast! A good way to achieve this is to get a couple teammates to post in a good secure area and then get one teammate to run into the open where the enemy can see him and then once the shots start flying sprint back to where your teammates are waiting. With some practice this can be a great tactic. The skill of the runner and the number of enemies lured in are the key factors to this tactic. The runner must be able to reach the ambush point without getting stuck to any cover objects thus slowing him down and becoming a bullet sponge. Picking the ambush location and having a clean line of escape to reach it are key as well. This tactic is not used as often as it should be currently in multiplayer. Take advantage of the fact that the enemy thinks you are afraid of them and will rush in for the kill.

The Pincer:

The pincer maneuver is simply a flank that gets the enemy sandwiched between your two squads. One squad will lure the enemy with fire while the other two man squad waits or moves around behind the enemy. Two of the optimum setups for this are below. They are the L and the Sandwich. X's represent the enemy and O's represent your teammates.

SandWich:

 O O

 X X

 O O

So in this one you want the enemy to end up between your two squads, that keeps them from using cover efficiently.

The L

        O
 X X  O
 O O

So in this instance your team is in an L formation and have two different angles on the enemy. This is the better setup when playing in games where team damage is enabled as you do not get your teammates in your line of fire.

Seek And Destroy

Having one squad take up a strategic position on the map and having the other squad server as rovers/roamers is a great strategy as well. Usually holding a piece of high ground with one teammate on sniper and one teammate covering him is a good choice. The other team then roves the map looking for the enemy and can either help to draw heat away from the first group, or flush the enemy out and push them toward the sniper to get them into one of the formations mentioned above.

Learn the MAPS!

Learning the maps and knowing all the paths through the maps are very important to setting up any of these maneuvers. Also knowing the locations of weapons will not only give you an advantage of firepower, it also gives you the ability to predict where the enemy is going to head for. Take a round or so and look at what weapons the enemy favors so that you can see what sections of the map they are more likely to be approaching.

This is just basic teamwork but it is NECESSARY to ensure victory. These maneuvers will form the basis of what strategies you come up with. And number one above all this is COMMUNICATION! If your team does not talk you will not win. Make sure you know where your teammates are so that when one is in trouble or killed you can figure out where the enemy is.

Weapon Data and Tactics

This section is going to focus on use of the different weapons and some of their stats.

Lancer: This is your basic machine gun. It has decent damage output and also serves as one of the best melee attacks as it has a chainsaw mounted on it. It has a decent rate of fire and can be great when strafing or circling an opponent from a medium distance. The weapon does full damage at close to medium range and drops to 60% damage at long range. The melee attack with the Lancer charges up a chainsaw. Once charged it can be used for an instant kill. Be careful unless you are face to face. Chasing someone at a distance with it is not recommended as getting shot turns off the chainsaw and you have to charge it again.

HammerBurst: This is the Locust weapon of choice from the single player campaign. It shoots in 6 round bursts. But it is more powerful and fires those 6 rounds more rapidly than the Lancer. It is much easier to take down an enemy with this but you lose the chainsaw. The damage of the bullets is about 20% more than that of the Lancer. This is great for nailing enemies at long to medium distance. When in close though switch to the Lancer or the Gnasher Shotgun.

Gnasher: This is your best friend in a close fire fight. The Gnasher shot does about 6 times the damage of a Lancer bullet. At close range like point blank it does even more about 2 and a half times more when close than when medium range. At a long distance the damage drops off quick though. One of the least known but most useful aspects of this gun are the melee damage. When wielding the Gnasher using the 'B' button to whack the enemy with it does 3 times the normal damage! This is more than most guns bullets damage. It is also a great defense against those trying to chainsaw you. You can hit them with the melee attack and it hits so hard that the enemy will be stunned for a second giving you time to blast them. When you are in close to an enemy and shooting ZOOM IN. You want to make sure you are aiming for the head as this will put them down damn quick. There is nothing like watching someone explode in two from a single shotty blast point blank.

LongShot: The sniper's lil'Buddy. This thing is a terror at range. Other than being your standard sniper rifle it is important to know that you must reload after each shot which means you must zoom out to allow this to happen. You get a small zoom with he 'Left Trigger', then with pushing in the 'Right Analog Stick' you get a very powerful zoom for those headshots. In multiplayer a perfect headshot is a showering red one hit kill.

Torque Bow: This is my personal favorite! This bow is amazing. Used correctly your enemy will make a mess in their pants when you get this first. This bow does not hold much ammo but since a single shot can kill if you get a direct hit, you don't need much more. You must hold down the trigger to charge it and as it charges you will see a beam showing the path the arrow will take. The longer you charge it the straighter the path. Also if held down till the path is straight, when you hit an enemy it will stick in them and a second later BOOM! Explosive tips, one shot kills baby! You can hit their knee and they are still dead. This is awesome for hitting that leg or shoulder that will be sticking out when the enemy is behind cover. Another advantage is that if you do not wait till the beam is straight the arrow can ricochet off walls allowing you to shoot around corners. The arrow will always explode even on the ground or stuck in a wall which makes it great for flushing the enemy out of cover. Stick on in the ground or wall next to them and watch them run! The splash damage is pretty good. I like sticking it into a wall between two enemies and splitting them up as they run separate ways. One warning once you begin the charge you cannot unload the arrow. If you do not fire it will automatically after a few seconds.

BoomShot: The grenade launcher. Only 2 rounds of ammo but one well placed shot can take out multiple enemies. Aim for the feet as the splash damage can kill. Also when multiple enemies are in a tower or other close quarters you want to get more than one of them.

So here is the end of this section. I will continue with the rest of the weapons in the next article which will finish up the weapons section, and will contain strategies for the different maps for multiplayer as well. After that will be another article on either advanced tactics or single player campaign strategy.  As always let me know what you think.